Cyber Monday: Pee-wee Herman Tweets Classic Photo from ‘Playhouse’

Even Pee-wee Herman is taking part in Cyber Monday, tweeting to inspire his followers to find some deals on the Internet today. The account for the popular character shared a throwback photo of Conky, the resident robot from Pee-wee’s Playhouse, making sure followers knew it was “c-c-cyber Monday.”

The tweet also included a link to Amazon’s Cyber Monday deals and a link to a post on Pee-wee’s website declaring that today is, indeed, Cyber Monday.

“Today is C-c-cyber Monday!” the post read. “Much like Black Friday, today is a day to find good deals! The difference is that today’s bargains are all found online.” The message also encouraged fans to head to Amazon.com and CyberMonday.com to find their own deals.

Conky was an appropriate choice of photo to accompany the technology-focused message, as the robot is made from parts of old electronics including a typewriter.

“Holy childhood flashback,” one fan wrote in response to the tweet. “Conky!!! Yeaaaahhhhh!” shared another.

Pee-wee Herman was brought to life by comedian Paul Reubens in a stage act that led to an HBO special in 1981. The character made his film debut in 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, where Reubens made Herman more kid-friendly. Pee-wee’s second movie was Big Top Pee-wee in 1988 and he starred in a television show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, ran on CBS from 1986 to 1991. A third film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, was released on Netflix in 2016.

“I went to the California Institute of the Arts, the school founded by Walt Disney, during the time of conceptual and performance art,” Reubens previously told Interveiw magazine of his unique situation of nearly always being in character. “I was in the theater school, but I was around a lot of performance artists and a lot of conceptual artists. I always viewed what I did at the time, and now looking back on it, as an offshoot of performance art.”

“I spent a lot of time and energy making sure that people thought Pee-wee was a real person,” he added. “My billing was always ‘Pee-wee Herman as Himself.’ In the movies, it’s Pee-wee Herman in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. When my writing credit came on the screen, people didn’t know that Paul Reubens was Pee-wee Herman, and there was never a photograph of me as myself.”

Photo Credit: Netflix